Mother and Son
by menolly-au
Summary: Post-ep for Love is Blind. When House doesn't turn up for dinner Blythe goes looking for him. Mother & son have a discussion about House's parentage amongst other things.


Dominika answered the door and came back with Blythe in tow. His Mom was wearing her 'look how tolerant I am of my wayward son' expression. She had perfected that over his childhood and the few times he'd met his parents as an adult.

"We had dinner arrangements, Greg."

He put down the video game controller and looked at her. "Well, after how the _ last _dinner went I thought I'd take a raincheck. I'm sure you and Thomas will have a good time, maybe you could take Wilson, he always enjoys a free show."

"I don't think we'd be welcome back at_ that _restaurant. It's my last night in town Greg, I'm going home tomorrow, would it be so terrible for you to spend a few hours with me? I hardly ever see you."

House looked away, unwilling to face the disapproval in his Mom's expression. She usually allowed him to dodge these social engagements, although he knew he disappointed her when he did so. He had thought she would let this one slide as well.

"I will go out Greg, you have a nice visit with your mother," Dominika said, picking up her coat and purse. He shot her a look of betrayal but she just smiled at him and departed with a wave of her hand.

When the door had closed behind Dominika his Mom took a seat. "She seems like a nice girl."

"The best green card wife a man could have." He sighed and scratched his eyebrow; this would be a long evening. "It's just a fake marriage Mom; don't start knitting clothes for the grandkids."

"She seems to like you, and you're comfortable with her," Blythe looked around the apartment, Domnika's feminine touches were obvious, he'd gotten used to them, and her, over the last few months. "Maybe you could become something more?"

"I drove a car through the house of my last girlfriend, Mom, do you really think I should have another one anytime soon? "

His Mom's lips tightened, he'd scored a hit with that comment. It wasn't like he was proud of what he'd done and wanted to boast about it; he had just wanted her to stop trying to pair him off. After the disaster with Cuddy he wasn't eager to go down that road again; the hookers were suiting him fine, sex with no commitment, that's what he needed.

He hadn't wanted his Mom to know about the 'incident' with the car, and his going to prison, but as it turned out she'd known for a long time. Also, apparently, she hadn't thought about visiting him while he was rotting in prison.

"I just don't understand Greg, why would you do something like that? How could you do that to Lisa? Your father and I didn't raise you to... "

House stood up abruptly, he couldn't listen to this. He couldn't listen to her lecture him about how he was raised. Not now, not with the memory of Wilson's words ringing in his ears. Thomas wasn't his father, and his Mom had thought he could be. Just how many lovers had she had? How long had she been lying to his father? Was that why...

"Thomas isn't my father," he said abruptly. He didn't know why he'd said that - he hadn't intended telling her he knew. It was foolish, to keep thinking that there might be a man out there who could be a father to him, that things could be different. He was too old; nothing was going to change for him now. His father, his _ real _father, could walk through the door and his life would still suck just as much as it did now. Blood was just that, blood. It wasn't family.

Mom looked up at him, a flash of surprise passing over her face before her features settled into that composed, slightly amused expression she usually wore. Shit, Wilson had nothing on her when it came to presenting a persona to the world. He'd been fooled by it - all his life he'd thought she was a boring, mundane, average, house wife who hated conflict and loved her bastard of a marine husband. He'd thought that her cheating on John was some sort of aberration, now he'd found out that the whole thing had been a lie. There had been no happy marriage, she'd been cheating on him the whole time, whether she was sleeping with Thomas or not.

"I never said he was, dear. _ You _ said that. After you..._ exposed _ yourself in that restaurant. Really, Gregory, with all those people there, and in front of your friend, was that scene necessary? I've never been so embarrassed."

House laughed, a short bark of a laugh. "You weren't embarrassed about me doing that, you hardly raised an eyebrow. And you thought Thomas could be my father, you didn't deny it. He thought he could be too - hard to miss that look of horror. Obviously you two had been doing the horizontal mambo right about nine months before I was born." _ And for a long time afterward _. He blanked out the image of the hotel room in his mind, the rumpled sheets, and the naked man in his mother's bed.

"I'd hoped he was, it was possible. Thomas and I... we'd been together a few times around that period. You have similar birthmarks. I'd always hoped that you were his, after I realised that you couldn't be John's."

"You knew I wasn't Dad's? Did he know?" It could explain so much.

"I think he always suspected, even before you threw it in his face when you were twelve. You were such a difficult child, Greg, always pushing, always testing. You hurt him deeply when you said you weren't his son. He'd always been a father to you. He loved you, and you repaid him by rejecting him."

"_ I _ hurt _ him," _ House almost choked on the words; he slammed his hand against the nearest wall, the pain gave him a familiar jolt of distraction. "He didn't speak to me for three months after that, Mom. I was a _ child, _and he didn't speak to me all summer. He hurt _ me _, Mom." He rubbed at his wrist, feeling the clamp of an adult hand around it, as he was dragged up the stairs of their old house. He shivered as he pushed them memories back down, and away, with the habit of long practice.

"That was a long time ago, Greg. Your father is dead. I'm married to Thomas now. He thinks you are his son now, are you going to tell him you're not?"

"If I do maybe I'll get lucky and he won't speak to me either." House had no intention of forming a relationship with the man. Thomas had pretended to be John's friend while sleeping with his wife. House had hated John, he still did, but his father had been a man of integrity, and of honour, he would never have done that to Blythe. House respected him for that, if nothing else. A lying, two timing, so-called minister of the cloth, was no-one he could respect. "How are you going to explain to Thomas that he had competition in the 'fathering your child stakes'? What did you do, take out an ad in the paper?" he asked bitterly.

"Thomas will understand - it was a long time ago. And I think he will survive knowing he's not your father," Blythe said, her voice tinged with amusement. "Thomas and I are married, Greg, and have been for three years. You need to accept the place he has in my life. It's nice to have someone there, and it's not like you ever come to see me, dear. Please don't ruin this for me."

"You didn't tell me you got married. It's been _ three years, _ Mom. You couldn't have mentioned it before now?"

"You didn't tell me you were in prison."

"Apparently I didn't need to. Dad always said I'd end up in prison one day, I guess you believed him."

"The police came to my house."

House stared at her, some of his anger fleeing in the face of confusion. "Why would they come to your house?"

"They wanted to know if I'd heard from you. They came in and searched the house, looking for any sign of you. I had to tell them I had no idea where my son was, and if he was in trouble I'd be the last person he would contact. They made me feel like a criminal, Greg."

"I didn't know they'd do that." He heard the defensive whine in his voice and felt like he was being reduced to a child. A child who had spectacularly failed to fool his mother. All the time he'd been lying to her, telling her that he'd been away, she'd known where he was. And why.

She'd made no attempt to contact him, let alone visit him, during that long year he spent in prison.

"The police said that besides the damage you did to Lisa's house you broke James' wrist, Greg."

"I didn't break his wrist!" House shouted, and then reined himself in, "he did that to himself. The car was missing him by a long way, he didn't need to jump, he would have been fine. Wilson is a klutz."

"You know what you did was wrong, Greg. If it wasn't you wouldn't be so ashamed of it."

He looked away from his Mom's accusing gaze. He felt like he was eight again, trying to explain some indiscretion or other. "I've paid for it, Mom. I was in prison for a year I'm still on parole. I was on house arrest until a couple of months ago." He looked down at the bracelet on his right wrist. He wore it to remind himself of what happened, and what it cost him.

"Wilson's fine, _ we're _ fine, if you didn't get that from the way he was all over you. We're still BFFs. Things are good between us; better than they've been for a while."

His Mom smiled tolerantly at him, "I'm glad that he's forgiven you, dear. James is lovely, such a generous man, he's a credit to his mother. It's a shame all his wives left him, and then there was poor Amber of course... "She trailed off delicately and House gritted his teeth and wondered how long he should wait before taking another pain killer. This conversation was certainly worth a couple of Vicodin. He wondered how she'd react if he told her that Amber was dead because of him.

"Wilson's always the perfect husband to his wives, and then he cheats on them; Amber was just lucky she died before he got to that point," he said instead. He fished his pills out of his pocket, damned if he was going to suffer through the rest of this night without some pharmacological help.

He caught his Mom's disapproving glance at his pills and scowled, tucking the container back i his pants. He downed a couple of the pills quickly and made a show of licking his lips.

"Ahh, yummy!" His mother just looked at him; steadfastly refusing to react and he sighed and looked down at the floor. How much longer was she going to hang around? "Taking the moral high ground, Mom? It's a bit late for that isn't it?"

"I'm just concerned about you, Greg. You take a lot of those pills."

"I have a lot of pain." He wondered if he could follow them up with a tall glass of scotch. But that would mean offering her a drink, and before you knew it they'd be doing the whole dinner party thing and she'd never leave. "So, Mom - who exactly was my real Dad?" While she was here at least he could find that out, for once and for all. He'd wasted a lot of time on Thomas. Short of testing the DNA of random strangers he was reliant on his Mom to tell him the truth. If she even knew the answer, and he was beginning to have his doubts about that. This whole visit had made a lie out of everything he thought he knew about his Mom.

"I know for sure it wasn't Dad. I tested his DNA at the funeral, and he wasn't my biological father, and neither is Thomas. Who else was on your dance card around that time? It was a big base, lots of fit young men for you to take for a test drive."

"Gregory House! You will not speak to me that way, I am your mother, have some respect -"

"Respect? Like the respect you gave dear old Dad?" He swallowed and sank back down into a chair. "Just tell me, Mom, tell me who my real father is. I want to know."

There was a long silence and he thought she wasn't going to tell him but eventually she cleared her throat.

"Your father was away on assignment, so was Thomas. There was a party which a friend of mine was hosting; she needed some help with the food so I went. There were some men from the base there..."

"And one thing led to another, and before you knew it one of them had you in the back seat of his car showing you his metaphorical medals. Does this man have a name?"

"Yes, but it won't do you any good. He's dead Greg, he was deployed the next week and was killed in a training mission before you were born."

Dead, his biological father was dead. Of course he felt nothing, why should he?

"He's definitely the one? No other little liaisons you've forgotten?" He heard the harshness of words but didn't care.

"He was the only other one besides Thomas and John. Thomas returned from deployment the next week, John a few days later."

"Would you have said anything to him if he hadn't died? Would you have told him?"

"John was your father, that is all anybody needed to know."

Mother and son looked at each other, the silence stretching between them, a life of deceit forming a gulf that neither could jump.

Once his Mom had gone, while the memory of her goodbye embrace was still warm, he googled the name she had given him and found an old graduation photo on a family history website. His uniform was crisp and new in the photo, the dates of his birth and death a testimony to his youth. He studied the photo, looking for a hint of something, anything, that would tie this man to him. There was nothing, the man looking back at him was a stranger to him, and always would be. John had been his father, in everything that mattered, for both bad and good.

His father was dead.

He went over to the bookshelf and pulled out Thomas's book of sermons and tossed it into the trash; took one last look at the photo of the young man and switched off the computer. After pouring himself a generous glass of scotch, and downing another Vicodin, he settled down on the couch and waited for Dominika to return.


End file.
